


Ripples

by DaughterOfDungeonBat



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Character Death, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Multi, One Shot Collection, Trans Male Character, in everything I write Kaze is trans okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 12:02:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7933906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfDungeonBat/pseuds/DaughterOfDungeonBat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No soldier is lost without shock waves. Each death creates ripples.</p><p> One-Shots based on the aftermath of each death in my classic run of Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright. Characters who are plot important are written as to have suffered an injury that prevents them from fighting. Character and relationship tags will be added as more chapters are posted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ripples

**Author's Note:**

> The injury Kaze mentions is a fully severed achillies tendon which keeps him from walking effiently or without pain.

"Azura, please don't do this." Kaze said, watching his wife shuffle about their tent from the bed, his heavily bandaged ankle the only indication that he was anything but alright. Azura shot Kaze an unreadable look as she pulled lightweight leather armor from a sack.  
"I have to." She said, quickly fastening the straps around her forearms, "You know that." Kaze huffed slightly, but said nothing despite how much he wanted to. He knew why she was taking up his shurikens and gear, but it didn't make it any easier. Kaze swallowed around the lump that was quickly forming in his throat.  
"You want to protect Shigure." Though Azura had her back to Kaze, he could see how she froze at his words, her shoulders rising as she wrapped her arms around herself. Azura's thin, delicate fingers, hands that showed years of carrying melodies rather than throwing knives, gripped so tightly to the blue of her dress that her knuckles turned white. The wound causing this sudden change in behavior was so fresh it still bled in both of them.  
"Azura-" Kaze started. Azura turned to face him, chest heaving with short, shallow breaths.  
"I have to protect my son." She said, eyes welling with heartbreak. Kaze was moments away from leaping from where he lay to hold her, but he knew his mangled ankle wouldn't support him for more than a single, painful instant. Azura continued her silent mission, eventually finding a mask and outfit that did not hand from her graceful form. They both knew they had belonged to Kagero, just as they both knew that she would not be needing them anymore. Soon, a stack of leather, metal weapons, and dark cloth sat on the bedside table exactly where Kaze's own gear had sat a few weeks before.  
Azura moved with a fragile strength, folding clothing too large for her sharply and with a set jaw. Kaze watched her in reverent silence until the sun had begun to set.  
"Azura?" He said, speaking for the first time in what felt like hours, "Please come to bed. You can work on the ninja stuff in the morning." He didn't mention that the tent was cleaner than it had any right being. Cleaning without end had become Azura's sole way of filling her time ever since she lost half of her heart.  
Since they had both lost half their hearts.  
"Kaze?" Azura said softly. "Please don't cry." Before Kaze could reply with confusion, the image of his wife wavered, and he realized that, despite his determination to hold his emotions in, his eyes were beginning to water. Kaze rubbed them harshly and muttered something even he couldn't decipher.   
Slowly, gently, Azura melted into Kaze's side, slipping beneath the blankets to rest her face in his neck, her soft blue hair fanning out over his chest.  
"Please don't cry, Kaze." She whispered, the sharp break in her voice clear. "Please...."   
Azura's fragile resolve crumbled into rubble, Kaze holding out only long enough to pull her into his arms.  
"I have to keep Shigure safe." Azura sobbed, curling her fingers so tightly into Kaze's chest that the soft skin would likely bruise. "I just keep thinking- thinking that if- if I had been there, if I had been st-stronger........"  
Kaze pulled her closer, his own tears falling into her hair. The shards of glass in his heart told the same story as that of Azura's misery.   
"I could have saved her, Kaze." Azura said, "I could have saved our Midori." Kaze said nothing, not trusting his voice to manifest as anything other than a pained whine.  
The pair held each other through the night, soothing nightmares and and the realizations that their minds' visions of a laughing, smiling girl would never again be reality.   
Kaze woke with a blinding flash of pain in his shredded ankle, the agony just another reminder that his body, like his family, was torn in ways that would never heal. Immediately, the former ninja noticed that Azura was no longer at his side.  
"Good morning, Kaze." She said, drawing his attention. She wore full ninja gear, a dark mask obscuring her pretty face into something dark and secretive. Kaze wanted to tell her to tear off every scrap of leather, each strap and weapon, just go back to the Azura he had once known.  
"Are you going to train?" He said instead. Azura's expression was unreadable behind the mask, but she nodded twice.  
"I just have to do one more thing." She said, her voice muffled but strained. Azura pulled back her beautiful hair, soft but the color of ice, and pulled a shuriken from her belt.  
"Azura, what-"  
**Slash**  
Before Kaze could even finish, Azura sliced a blade of the shuriken through the gathered handful of her hair, sending ribbons of blue floating to the floor like feathers ripped from some graceful creature slain by some far crueler entity. Kaze gaped at Azura, his wide violet eyes flickering back and forth from her covered face to the wide arc of icy strands littering the floor.  
"Azura!" Kaze said, stunned. "Why..... Your hair....."  
Azura stared at him hard, the fragility from the night before nothing but a long forgotten shadow.  
"I have to keep my son safe, Kaze. He's all I have left."

**Author's Note:**

> I lost Midori in the lava level to a rock golem :(  
> Only Saizo was there with her, and he was her support on that mission.


End file.
